Hail drives Timaru vehicle sales up, against NZ trend

Car registrations have skyrocketed in Timaru, with November’s hail storm a major contributor, new data shows.

The latest figures collated by Infometrics, a Wellington-based economics consultancy firm, shows the number of vehicles registered in the Timaru District increased by 18.4 per cent in the year to December 2019, compared with the previous 12 months. The numbers go against a national decrease of 8.6 per cent for the same period.

A total of 2261 cars were registered in the district in the year to December 2019, 607 higher than the 10-year average of 1654.

The number of commercial vehicles registered in the district decreased by 6.5 per cent, with a total of 605 registrations.

The figures are no surprise to Timaru car dealers, who say they have been ‘‘very busy’’ with the November 20 hail storm, when thousands of vehicles in the town were damaged from large hail stones pelting down on them, a driving force in sales.

HVS Motors Timaru owner Hamish Gardyne said his business had sold up to three times the vehicles it normally does in December and January, and stock from other towns.

The hail caused $1.5 million in damage to 173 of his cars. ‘‘Eventually the event depleted a lot of stock out of Christchurch and Dunedin as well. A huge amount of stock was drawn out of the market.

‘‘We would have sold 200 vehicles easily over the two months in Timaru and they were basically all hail-replacement cars.’’

Gardyne worked as a receiving agent for Turners Cars in the aftermath of the storm.

He said December was the ‘‘craziest’’ time of the year for write offs.

‘‘It’s down to about five cars a day now being handed in for total loss. In the pink of it we got to 60 a day that were getting handed in.

He said it was almost back to normal business again.

‘‘Even our vehicle sales normalised this month. Our sales are still good but nothing extreme or crazy, we’ve managed to fill our yard up again.’’

‘‘We probably didn’t even supply probably five per cent of the replacements bought in Timaru. It was massive.’’

Gardyne ‘‘literally’’ lived on the site of his business following the hail, and said he was looking forward to now spending time with his baby girl born 37 hours after the hail storm.

‘‘It has been insane but I’m looking forward to the rest.’’

Access Autos sales manager Darcy Campbell said the car dealership probably sold twice the normal number of vehicles in December and January.

‘‘We are still getting customers coming in who had their cars written off,’’ Campbell said.

‘‘December was our busiest month, January was still quite busy and we’ve noticed a slowdown in February.’’

Darren Motors owner Mike Darren said his vehicles were not affected by the hail storm.

‘‘We were lucky to have fresh stock. As the fresh stock came in, we found that it was selling very quickly indeed.’’

South Canterbury Chamber of Commerce chief executive Wendy Smith said the boost in car sales because of hail damage had been beneficial for car yards, panel beaters and similar service agents, but disastrous for some.

‘‘For some businesses it has also caused quite significant issues with roof and building damage, leakages and damaged stock, thankfully no one was seriously injured. For those without insurance or with insufficient cover the impact has sadly been devastating.’’